We’re all in this together!

And God said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:28

So this is the bit where God puts us in charge. We are told to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. This gives us free rein to do what we want, to abuse the earth and exploit the animals with a completely clear conscience. Really? Can that possibly be what God is saying? Of course not. I prefer to think of it as having responsibility for our wonderful world, for taking care of it and maintaining a balance of life exactly as it should be. And we as humans have done an incredibly awful job of that, haven’t we?

This is one of the first assemblies I ever wrote in February 2008, back in the day when High School Musical was all the rage –

We’re all in this together!

Aim: to highlight the interconnectedness of everyone in the world and to show that we can make a difference

Props:

An inflatable globe

Six coloured 1.5m lengths of ribbon

Target Audience: Key Stage Three

 

Introduction:

When you see pictures of starving children in refugee camps, child soldiers with guns in their hands instead of toys or families sorting through rubbish on landfill sites looking for their next meal, I wonder what you think……

“What can I do about it?”

“Nothing I can do will make any difference”

“What’s it got to do with me?”

(Pause)

The world is getting smaller.

Not physically smaller – it is not actually shrinking to this size! (produce the inflatable globe)

But through television reports and newspapers, the internet and cheap flights, we know more, we see more, we are more involved.

Whether we like it or not, what we do does make a difference.

 

Development:

(Invite twelve children to stand in a circle at the front. As you say each statement, give each end of a piece of ribbon to children on opposite sides of the circle, thus creating a web effect. (1))

1. By buying fair trade chocolate, you can help parents in Ghana send their children to school. (2)

(The fair trade farmers’ co-operative Kuapa Kokoo doesn’t cheat the farmers by using inaccurate weighing scales, as other buying agents often do. The cooperative invests in projects to improve the farmers’ living, health and education standards.)

2. By wearing organic cotton, you can reduce the environmental impact and severe health problems associated with conventional cotton farming. (3)

(Conventional cotton grown in China has over twenty applications of insecticide each season. These contain potentially carcinogenic substances which are banned in the US and the EU and  are damaging to the young children that harvest the cotton, the water supply and the environment.)

3. By using low energy light bulbs, you can play your part in slowing down climate change, which is responsible for the devastation of homes and lives in South Africa by severe flooding. (4)

(Climate change is happening right now and it’s the world’s poorest who are paying the price.)

4. By reusing plastic bags, you can reduce the staggering number littering our planet. (5)

(British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. About a million a minute are used worldwide – and then they’re all thrown away. But they do not biodegrade, so they do not disappear and they represent a lethal threat to wildlife, in particular in the oceans.)

5. By drinking fair trade orange juice, you can improve the quality of life in Cuba for people like Esperanza. (6)

(“It has been great to change from a mud floor to a cement one,” said Esperanza “Now I can have furniture and it’s so easy to clean. Also, the roof is very important, as nothing gets wet when it rains now. I am very grateful to fairtrade for making this possible.”)

6. By eating responsibly caught fish, you can help to guarantee that there will always be plenty of fish in the sea. (7)

(Because our oceans are being seriously over fished, some fish supplies may disappear altogether, unless action is taken. Overfishing is damaging fishing industries and marine environments all around the world.)

 

By playing your part, you can make a difference to how the world works. (throw the inflatable globe onto the web and let the children balance it on the interwoven ribbons)

 

Reflection:

(It would be a good visual aid to keep the globe balanced on the web during the Reflection, but if this would  cause too much of a distraction, then the children could  sit down at this point and you could hold the globe)

We’re all in this together.

Every person, animal, bird, fish, tree, plant…

Each a part of this amazing world in which we all live.

 

Or in the words of Gabriella from High School Musical –

“Everyone is special in their own way,

They make each other strong.

We’re not the same, we’re different in a good way,

Together’s where we belong.”

 

So let’s not forget –

We’re all in this together.

We can all make a difference.

We all have a part to play.

 

We’re all in this together.

  

1. String Web based on a similar idea on page 55 of Essence by Rob Frost (Kingsway)

2. www.divinechocolate.com
3. www.peopletree.co.uk
4. www.christianaid.org.uk
5. Information taken from an Independent article in November 2007 http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/london-joins-national-campaign-to-banish-the-curse-of-the-plastic-bag-400242.html
6. www.fruit-passion.com
7. www.msc.org

Nothing much has changed in the last eight years since this assembly was written. These issues are still important issues today. The statistics may have changed a little, but the message is still the same. We have a responsibility to the world around us. We have a role to play in taking care of our wonderful planet. We are all in this together.